I found this out when I was watching a bit of it on HBO in what must have been the summer of 1983. My parents were outside mowing the lawn or doing yard work after supper, so I went right to channel two, which was HBO then.
I don't remember how much I watched of it, but I clearly remember this scene scaring the hell out of me.
When that man's chest opened up into a gaping maw with fangs and bit the doctor's forearms off, I was out of there! It was a heck of a thing for a nine year old to see, but it terrified me. So much so that it wouldn't be until I was doing research for my own science fiction class at LHS (2001) that I mustered up the courage to watch it again.
It still terrifies me.
Carpenter's film is based on the classic sci fi story "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell. And the plots are quite similar.
The story is a staple of science fiction and the concept of the alien invasion, only this type of invasion is right out of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" as opposed to the type of invasion from Independence Day. An alien ship crashes in earth's ancient past. A Norwegian Arctic research team discovers the ship . . . and one alien buried in the ice. They (in the wisest of all moves in science fiction/horror films) bring it back to their camp where it thaws and begins attacking the Norwegians. Only what this alien does is mimic other life forms.
Where Carpenter's film begins is with the few survivors of the Norwegian camp in a helicopter chasing a lone dog across the Arctic. They can't seem to shoot it (another classic in science fiction/horror films). And thus it flees an American camp of scientists and researchers in the Arctic.
All the Norwegians die, but the dog infiltrates the camp and begins mimicking the other dogs in the American camp and then the Americans themselves. The remained of the movie is a puzzle to determine who are 'thins' and who are true Americans.
There are a couple things that make Carpenter's film a sci fi classic.
First, the effects are stellar (if horrific). There were tales of people vomiting in theaters when it opened in 1982.
Second, Kurt Russell does an amazing job as the protagonist, helicopter pilot RJ MacReady. He leads the quest to determine who is still human.
Third, the ending. The film never resolves the key question - is 'the thing' dead? Russell and one other survivor, Childs, are left sitting alone as their camp burns to the ground. Neither are sure if the other is a human or a thing.
Is Childs the thing? Is MacReady the thing? Does it matter?
Well, of course it matters. If either one is the thing, it could well spell doom for all of humanity as one of the scientists does some calculating and realizes if the thing makes it to a populated setting and mimics others, it can take over the world in a matter of days.
But - as MacReady states late in the film - the thing really just wants to freeze again and wait for the rescue party to come to then get transported back to a population center to continue its conquest.
So who is the thing?
That has been gnawing at fans for decades now. A quick Google search reveals dozens of theories (not quite as many as for the ending of Inception, another science fiction classic).
Here is what Carpenter had to say recently via Twitter.
So one of them is the thing! I always thought it was MacReady, but I'm not so sure.
Regardless, The Thing, initially panned by critics, has stood the test of time and now has grown into a cult classic.
There was a pathetic attempt in 2011 to film a prequel telling the story of the Norwegian base, but the film is terrible compared to Carpenter's classic.
There are no plans for Carpenter to film a sequel though. But given that Bladerunner got a sequel years later as did The Shining, there is hope.
Until then, I did find a story that tells the story of Carpenter's The Thing from the alien's point of view. It's called "The Things" by Peter Watts, and it's pretty awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment